Hermetic Tarot Study Group - Two of Wands

The two of wands, called Lord of Dominion shows two wands with at its peak, a rams head. The rams represent power, control, courage and strength. The wands are the fire principle, and the card is ruled by Mars in Aries. The Ram is ruled by Mars and Aries. The two wands represent duality.

There are smaller wands above the larger ones, which is the same as below the bottom of the larger ones. They represent the axium, As above so below. So it shows the gods power in his realm and below. The flames emphasize the power of the suit. The hand holding the wands is conflagurated, the power to control the element of fire.

Also each smaller wand from above and below, has a flame, four all together, representing the elements as mentioned in the Ace of Wands. The number 2 is also represented by Chockma. It is a sephiroth of mirroring that of the number one Kether, so the 2 of wands is copying the Ace of wands, gaining power in its wake.

Serpenta

I find it interesting that the fiery hand seems to be crushing the crossed- ram-headed wands ... so duality yes, but with forced or coerced grip joining them in the form of an 'X' - ... holding 'dominion' you might say - forcing them together to try to re-evoke the Ace. When you look at the 2 and then the 3, you can see how different the grasping is. The three hand holds the wands, gently whereas the two has a feeling of fire burning out of control.

My Hebrew is poor to non-existent, and the letters of the two words, one each either side of the wands, are roughly drawn. The right side word looks (to me) like Daleth, Nun, Yod, aleph, Lamed and the left-side word - Vau, Heh, Vau, Aleph, Lamed. These make no sense to me so I assume that I either have the letters wrong, or I don't know the word meanings formed. Help anyone?

mythos

Hi, the hebrew words say: VHVAL which is "Vehooel" The other, DNYAL which is "Deneyal".

These are 2 of the 72 angels throughout the minors.

I agree with your description of the card, very interesting.

Serpenta

Ah thank you ... I've been avoiding wandering into the world of the 72 angels. Call it laziness ... and it is definitely time to use the wands for inspiration and begin a study of angelic kabbalistic beings and their connections. If I recall correctly, Uri Raz has some information on his site.

Can you recommend any reading? or links? Serpenta. I'm about to start on Mathers translation - The Kabbalah Unveiled.

mythos

Hi Mythos, here is a link that is very informative about the 72 angels. It includes a whole bunch of info on it.

http://www.hermeticgoldendawn.org/Documents/Essays/shemha.html

Some books that have them are:

A Magicians Companion by, Bill Whitcomb
Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia by, David Godwin
A Dictionary of Angels, Gustov Davison

Those are the ones I can name off. I cant find much out there bookwise of these 72 angels, but the ones I mentioned above have lists of them, and the Whitcomb author has abreviations of their meanings, Otherwise all the books just list them. A dictionary of angels, has lots of angels in them with what they do, but not to sure at the moment if they give a description for the 72 angels. Hope I helped some, and definetly look at the golden dawn link, that will help a lot.

Good reading.

Serpenta

Thanks heaps. I've quick scanned the Golden Dawn article and realise that I will need to spend heaps of time on it. Oh for a printer that actually works LOL. Still. taking notes by hand does help things to stick.

I am groaning at myself reading the article because I have been way too slowly wandering in the world of Agrippa, but am still on book 1.

There is some interesting stuff at: http://www.tarot.org.il/

mythos